What habits of yours kill your creativity?

[ariels]

From a Steve Jobs interview: There's an old Hindu saying that comes into my mind occasionally: "For the first 30 years of your life, you make your habits. For the last 30 years of your life, your habits make you." As I'm going to be 30 in February, the thought has crossed my mind.

[philk]

Distractions.

The internet[1] being the major one, occasionally video games or books. Somewhat unpleasantly I seem wired to seek new distractions whenever I don't have one currently occupying my mind.

I've been thinking of forcing myself to spend half an hour each day without stimulus, just thinking and writing on a paper notepad to get around this.

[1] I find posting on the internet much more distracting than surfing, because there's the constant desire to check back and see what responses you got.

[lionhearted]

> I've been thinking of forcing myself to spend half an hour each day without stimulus, just thinking and writing on a paper notepad to get around this.

This is good. If you find a cafe with the right ambiance for you, that's a great way of doing it. Then you make that place your "thinking cafe" - I travel a lot, and that's one of the first things I look for if I'm getting stuck or distracted at my apartment or hotel. Change of environment, for whatever reason, changes my thinking quite a lot. It's trial and error to find the right sort of environment for your thinking, but very useful when you find it.

[eegilbert]

This is why I like to walk to work. It's not possible for everyone; I understand. If you can do it, and don't bring along any devices, you have forced yourself into thinking time. This is usually when I have my best ideas.

[jgilbert]

riding my bike to work is good.

i find i do my best thinking in the shower. nice hot water and no distractions.

[zebra]

You may consider visiting a doctor. I was unable to code a single line because I was only looking to distract myself, not to work. I got diagnosed with light form of OCD and after taking some medication I am feeling better and working more.

[Luyt]

Having to anticipate implementation problems kills my creativity. Instead of developing the application and solving problems as they arise, thinking and worrying in advance about potential roadblocks, showstoppers and lack of acceptance can be a cause that I don't even start a project, or be reluctant with it.

[gsivil]

Just a few random thoughts

- Thinking too much how great you are

- Worrying too much about the progress of other people

- Ignore the original sources and look always for second hand solutions

- Ignoring the "lazy" part of your brain

- Being too lazy

- Thing that books are only for people that do not act

- Dream day and night of how to make more money

- Never stop for a second to think out of the box

[mahmud]

Forgetting how big the world is. I get a spiritual awakening every time I take a flight longer than 5 hours.

[ljordan]

My day job. I have to build space into it and put interesting things into the space or it's nearly intolerable. But that is why I'm working on changing jobs. I'm 31.

[wladimir]

Can't agree more. I don't intend to complain about my job at all, my colleagues are great and I earn enough, but I cannot put my creativity into it. I'd love to do new things, actually write (Python) code, solve interesting problems, work with huge distributed systems and optimize performance and scalability. But also doing more on the creative and user experience side. Now I'm just making minor fixes and adding minor features, and the most challenging aspect is avoiding stepping on mines in a big minefield of poorly written tightly coupled legacy code. Even the simplest things take days, and then there's the bureaucracy... This makes those 8 hours a day seem a bit wasted, time flies and when I get home I'm too tired to do much constructive. Too bad I'm a fucking wuss and too scared to start freelancing :/

[mattdeboard]

I had to do a double take after I read this to make sure I didn't write it and forget about doing so.

I too am 31, changing careers, and building space into my day job to do interesting things.

Of course, the Adderal prescription helps.

[mkrecny]

Do it. asap.

[daimyoyo]

Beer kills my creativity. I'm about to turn 30 so I need to cut back but now I'm in limbo at my job. So I get the "why not?" drink and from there it cascades until I'm 12 in and can't see straight. Feels bad, man.

[angrycoder]

If you are regularly drinking 12 beers in one night, killing your creativity is the least of your problems.

[geoka9]

Always wondered how people can do it. I did something like this once and had such a terrible hangover that just thinking of it makes my stomach twitch.

[krmboya]

Then it's the 'thing' that makes you drink killing your creativity, not the beer itself

[xtho]

It's not a habit but when I think 30 years back I'd actually say that what killed most of my creativity are computers and the Internet. They simply offer too many distractions and cannot replace the intimacy of working with pencil and unlined paper. But maybe it's just the way I use it -- e.g. that I answer questions like yours and follow sites like hn etc. They offer pleasant/stimulating distractions but on the whole ... Maybe it's a good idea to display your question as screen saver.

Nice quote although my habits were much better when I was 30 than they are now.

[dpcan]

Creativity is expressed in many forms, and if it were not for computers, my creative talents would never have been realized. I develop video games from the ground up, and these games wouldn't have come to life if not for computers.

To answer the poster's question however, I'd have to say my creativity is stunted by the myriad of distractions in my life. Within eye-shot right now I see 5 screens. 3 of them are turned on. If I were in my office, double it.

Sure I can control these distractions, but I choose not to because I think I'm addicted to constant info and visual overload, white noise, and a desperate need to be entertained every second of my life. Just being honest.

[cturner]

Regarding pencil and paper, I sense there to be a huge gap in notations used for representing ideas on paper/whiteboard.

Relational schema diagram notation is useful. You pick up some along the way, like "mind maps". UML is very heavy, and I don't know anyone who uses that for flow. So for most things, each person invents their own method of capturing ideas.

I've got a couple of tricks that do work for me. But the notations I use are unsophisticated compared to what could be done if this issue - smart ways to develop ideas - was a meme that lots of people were working on.

[paraschopra]

Inertia. Taking too much time to make a decision or passiveness can sometimes derail the whole thing.

[woadwarrior01]

Working for a paycheck.

[math]

eating too much lunch -> afternoon drowsiness.

[yason]

Latencies in communication. As long as I'm working on something that depends on other people's responses, I get drifting aloof while trying to figure out something sensible to do until I get my next piece. In contrast, programming a big task in a long-going flow almost demands me to distract myself away from the work so that I won't be totally consumed by it.

[Mz]

I don't think I really have any habits that kill my creativity. I spent many years deconstructing myself. I don't hesitate to question and discard something about myself that isn't working for me.

The two biggest obstacles to me getting more done are my job and my ongoing efforts to get well. They both take up a lot of my time and frequently leave me too tired, both mentally and physically, to spend the kind of time I would like to spend on other things. If I am 'mindlessly' surfing the web or something, it is because I am not together enough to do something more productive. Still, looking back, little by little, some things gradually make forward progress anyway, in spite of my constant lament that "I never get anything done!!"

[KevBurnsJr]

Drinking.

[photon_off]

To dodge the question: I don't often find creativity to be the bottleneck of my output. Execution is what takes time.

To answer the question: Probably beliefs that act as rules. It's written somewhere in a PG essay that it's best to not know what is "impossible." To generalize, if I believe that Google owns search and it's not possible to enter that market, then I'll subconsciously prune any ideas stemming from "search".

[kaiwen1]

Hacker News

[gsivil]

I would disagree here :). Hacker News can harm the so called "productivity", but it can boost your creativity.

[sudont]

I can blame you guys for getting me re-interested in Arduino and Cocoa.

[xtho]

Yes, that question was an easy one.

[mkrecny]

1. Exposing myself too much to the creative output of others.

This is bittersweet for obvious reasons.

Btw: check out thehackedbrain.com for similar discussions.

[Skywing]

World of Warcraft.

[tomjen3]

>It certainly pays better than my last hobby, WoW. Less dragons... better loot.

patio11, on his business.

[mahmud]

Playing video games is a loser thing to do. Just stop it already.

It's irritating to see so many grown men hunched over a joy-stick. No one ever changed the world playing a game.

[reitzensteinm]

Nobody ever changed the world getting over 13k karma on HN, either. Recreation is an important part of being human, and choosing to spend some of your recreation time playing games does not make you a loser.

Some people take it too far, but that's true of pretty much every recreational activity.

[mahmud]

If you're talking about my karma; in my time on HN, I made friends, learned something, made business acquaintances, made money, helped others, hired some people, etc.

How could I have accomplished those things shredding sprites?

[eswat]

I think you’re overlooking the potential rewards that such a “loser thing to do” can have. There can be quite a bit of overlap between a like-minded gaming community and Hacker News.

It may not be possible to accomplish all of the things you’ve got on HN while playing video games themselves. But it is when you have a chance to meet other creators that share a passion for this hobby and how can you have the passion to create if you don’t consume a little? I’ve met my share of talented creatives and entrepreneurs through my hobby, which have lead to business acquaintances, contract work and also hiring other ”losers” to help me create.

I assume you’ve done the same thing I’ve done through gaming, by having a genuine interest in startups/creating and sharing that interest with others here.

[mahmud]

Just a little perspective: I was replying to someone who admitted that playing a video game was killing his creativity.

In your case, you work for a game company, hardly a typical gamer. My experience with gamers, usually friends, roommates and acquaintances is not that flattering.

I am sure there are "functional gamers", but let's not confuse being functional despite of something, for being functional because of it.

[alexyoung]

Taking a break and having fun isn't a "loser thing to do", it's good for you.

[mahmud]

It's my experience that the less work people do, the more serious they are about taking their breaks.

I would need to plow a field with my bare hands before I can justify a weekend of mindless gaming.

Let's face it, countless people, often at the prime of their age, devote substantial amount of their time moving simple geometric objects around a screen. Their entire being under the control of a switch statement.

Instead of playing games, MAKE THEM. Code demos. Crack DRM. Build your own console and sell it as kits. Open your own gaming cafe, etc. But sitting down for 5 hour stretches is unacceptable.

[Aleul]

How come you're so outspoken against what others choose to do?

Who are you to declare whether or not 5 hours of gaming is unacceptable? If that's what someone chooses to do it's pretty arrogant to think they are lesser than you because they don't do what you would do in that situation.

There are plenty of things I probably like that you don't. Should I criticize you, because you choose to do other things than what I'd do?

[ianp]

Well i'm glad to see you never take breaks. Err, except when you waste all day on HN?

Don't criticize others for spending their free time differently from you. The same arguements you posed for HN work just as well for video games.

[say_]

You don't understand value. There is no other explanation for why you can't seem to understand why people choose things you personally don't approve of.

We live in a world of scarce resources. You need to create at least as much value for others as you consume, but beyond that point you can choose to do whatever you want that doesn't infringe on the law or other people (well, you only need to worry about the law, but ethically you should think of others too). Some people just don't care about the things you value. Why is that such a problem for you?

[MikeCapone]

Starcraft II.

[TikiKitchen]

The biggest killer for me are distractions like Facebook and Twitter. I also tend to fall prey to the anxiety of influence. I start feeling like my work will never be as good as other's work and begin to withdraw from creating.

[algorias]

Adding too many feeds to my reader. A site like HN is tolerable, since I won't even notice if I've been away for a couple of days, but the unread count on my reader...

[bennyk]

I always wanted to write a book called, "Overcoming inertia or How I got off my lazy ass"

[tomjen3]

I always wanted to read that book - do you take preorders?

[bennyk]

haha I may be onto something now I just need to follow my own advice

[stretchwithme]

All the poems about water in the world will not prepare you for the first splash.

[yourfluffiness]

having the "i don't have enough time" mindset. there's no such thing as "no time." if it's important, if it's a priority, you'll have time and you'll get it done.

[egypturnash]

ooh hey i think i'll just browse the innanet some more i'll start drawing right after a couple more articles on reddit

[laxj11]

going to school.

[plurinshael]

I'm more held up by the other people at school than the school or profs themselves (though sometimes you just want to slap your prof silly, ya know?). Math class is one right now that is so bittersweet for this reason. I'm just foraying into multiple variables (calculus 2) and I'm so deeply fascinated by mathematics. I've never studied something that has such far-reaching and unexpected side effects for my consciousness. I don't know whether mathematics changes the structure of my brain, but it certainly changes the structure of my mind in ways I cannot describe to someone who hasn't done it.

So having to deal with mathematicians'/scientists'/engineers' egos, hearing the light snickering every time I ask anything less than a brilliant question, is extremely disheartening. At times I want to turn around and explain stern-facedly to please contribute or keep silent, this is the closest thing I have to a religion. But I lack the ability to deploy such a rebuke that would not detract overall from the learning environment, so I take the jibes. I swear, college isn't that different from high school. (it's been a while since high school, so maybe that's an exaggeration. but the social interaction has a real and discouraging potential for immaturity.)

Also, the strict time schedule around classes screws up my natural creative rhythm, and I'm still working on the concept of a school that addresses my kind of temporal sensibilities.

But yeah, I hear you.

[krmboya]

I second you on the school time schedule killing your creativity. Having to memorize methodologies and stuff when you'd rather be building something cool

[rafawhs]

Noise or silence. Work without music.

[miraj]

Facebook & TV.

[cruciform]

simple.

GAMING.

[to]

minecraft.

[kingsidharth]

Thinking too much about what others think is the best "creativity killer".

I prefer to be the kid I am (I am 19) and free in thoughts - careless. That's what keeps my creativity up.

Make your question more specific?